Thursday, June 26, 2008

Good Morning America‘s Sam Champion talking about the waterfall art installation underneath the Brooklyn Bridge this morning:

I can’t stand how beautiful this is to me.

Granted, he is right. It did look pretty cool.  I’ll post video if it becomes available.

UPDATE: You can view the video here.

Posted by Kevin K. on 06/26/08 at 07:39 AM
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Oops, sorry, didn’t mean to get the folks at No Quarter and HillaryIs44 all excited by the title of this post, but was wondering if we had any animal tracking or raccoon experts out there. We found what appear to be muddy animal paw prints in our garden this morning and also some markings in the silt at the bottom of a large bucket that had collected rainwater. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a raccoon because my wife Chris and I once saw one up a tree in Queens and there have been plenty of sightings in this Brooklyn neighborhood. What do you guys think?

Posted by Kevin K. on 05/14/08 at 08:26 AM
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

“We’re From Barcelona”—I’m From Barcelona

THE GIVEAWAY IS OVER!  THANKS TO ALL WHO PARTICIPATED.

Folks, as promised last week, I have a pair of tickets to give away for the I’m From Barcelona & Thao Nguyen show this Thursday May 1st at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple (317 Clermont Ave, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY). I’ve heard and read really great things about I’m From Barcelona’s live show and I can tell you from personal experience that the Masonic Temple is an extremely cool place to catch a show.

If you’d like to enter to win a pair of tix, simply send me an email to “tips (-at-) rumproast.com” (or click on the “Tips” email link in the top right sidebar), write “Barcelona” in the subject and your full name in the body of the email before midnight tonight (4/29 ET). I’ll randomly select a winner and contact you via email if you’ve won.

This giveaway is courtesy of the fine folks at Boost Mobile.

In addition, tickets are still available at TicketWeb as well and you get a free six-month (23 issue) New York magazine subscription with purchase.

Peek below the fold for a few more Barcelona videos and one really cool claymation video from Thao Nguyen…

Posted by Kevin K. on 04/29/08 at 01:36 PM
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Friday, April 25, 2008

“Faith Healer” from Big Dipper’s Boo-Boo, quite possibly the best EP ever released

Thank god I thumbed through the latest Time Out New York this morning or I wouldn’t have known that two of my favorite indie pop bands of the 80’s, Big Dipper & Great Plains, are playing tonight at Southpaw in Park Slope. Boston’s Big Dipper released their first three exceptionally solid pop masterpieces in the late 80’s on the legendary (and long-gone) Homestead Records label and Merge Records was recently kind enough to re-release all of that out-of-print material and a slew of great bonus material on an insanely cheap 3-disc box set called Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology. Columbus, OH’s Great Plains were under-appreciated fractured pop masters, churning out smart n’ snarky clingers like “Letter to a Fanzine” (chorus: “Why do punk rock guys go out with new wave girls?"), “Dick Clark” and “Martin Luther King/Martin Luther Drinking”. Old 3C’s wonderful 2-CD retrospective Length of Growth 1981-89 is unfortunately out-of-print and fetches $99 or more online, but you can obtain a CD-R version of it from the label and apparently MP3 downloads are still available via eMusic and iTunes.

MP3s:

• “Faith Healer” & “Wrong in the Charts” by Big Dipper
  
• “Letter to a Fanzine” & “Dick Clark” by Great Plains
  

MORE: Here’s a review of Big Dipper’s show last night at Maxwell’s.

ATTENTION NYC MUSIC FANS: Might as well shoehorn this in here ... Rumproast will be giving away a pair of tix for the May 1st show featuring I’m From Barcelona & Thao Nguyen at the Masonic Temple in Brooklyn in the very near future.  If you want to go (or know someone who does), keep an eye on this blog for details.

Posted by Kevin K. on 04/25/08 at 03:27 PM
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

I know I’m easy, but the fact that this video by the Carolina Chocolate Drops already has 37,000 views on YouTube gives me new faith in humanity. These guys are playing Celebrate Brooklyn on June 26th with the Dixie Hummingbirds. I’ll be there.

(via FREEwillemdafoe)

Posted by Kevin K. on 04/23/08 at 11:32 PM
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Sunday, March 16, 2008

The New Pornographers—“Myriad Harbour”

• Arnaud Rodrigues—Som Do Paulinho: If you like the Brazilian psych-groove of Tropicalia, you need this hard-to-find gem.
  
• My Dog Impersonating Orson Welles: Here’s your reference point, if you need one.
  
• Michel de Broin: Truly solid snark art. (via The Daily Dish)
  
• Steve Albini explains “Fake Italian”: The former frontman of Big Black stops short of saying “spicy meatball.”
  
• La Strada: Your New Favorite Indie Band: Brookyln’s La Strada gets a shout out from HuffPo.
  
• Pardoning, parsing “black truth”—A great post from the Black Snob about a lot of stuff white people, particularly Hillshills and the MSM, don’t “get.”
  

Posted by Kevin K. on 03/16/08 at 09:37 AM
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Friday, March 14, 2008

My wonderful and talented pal Elisa Flynn has been hiding out in the studio lately working on her new album (tentatively titled “Songs about Birds and Ghosts”—Elisa, please remove “tentatively"), but she’s poking her head out to perform a free show at Union Hall in Park Slope this Tuesday at 9PM. Her new live act featuring the fabulous percussive accompaniment of Anders Griffen is a thing of absolute beauty and Tuesday she’s going to unveil some of her eagerly-awaited, freshly-minted songs, so make sure you head on down.

And to further sweeten the pot, Dean Wareham (Galaxie 500, Luna) will be reading from his new book Black Postcards and performing a short acoustic set earlier that evening (7:30PM) at the same venue. If you’re a New Yorker and you’d rather sit on your couch Tuesday watching American Idol or Big Brother than spend an intimate and sure-to-be excellent evening with Elisa and Dean, you really should consider moving to New Hampshire and harvesting honey in your underpants.

Or something like that.

Posted by Kevin K. on 03/14/08 at 10:15 AM
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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

My first submission: “DOOF CENTER,” Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY, 4/26/01

From my pal Elisa (via email):

The Brooklyn Museum is having an open call until 3/31 for a photography exhibition called “Click,” about the changing face of Brooklyn. Initial submissions are online, and there will be an exhibition at the Museum after the works have been selected. If you know someone who would be interested in participating, please forward this along to them.

“Brooklyn, like most of New York City, is in a constant state of change. Population growth and environmental causes have altered the borough’s terrain, transforming commercial and residential areas and impacting the borough’s residents and activity. Considering Brooklyn’s transformation over the years, its past and its present, please submit a photograph that captures the ‘changing face(s) of Brooklyn.’ We welcome a wide variety of visual interpretations of this topic.”

You can check it out Click! here.

Posted by Kevin K. on 03/05/08 at 12:55 PM
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

From The Brooklyn Paper

Here’s a sneak peek at Olafur Eliasson’s “New York City Waterfalls,” which will send water cascading from under the Brooklyn Bridge and from three free-standing scaffolds in New York Harbor — including this view of Governors Island off Red Hook — from July through October.

In the spirit of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “The Gates” project, Eliasson’s $15 million art project will consist of four waterfalls, towering between 90 and 120 feet, that will gush between 7 am and 10 pm every day.

You can view all of the waterfall images here. You can check out more of Eliasson’s work here.

MORE: From the Daily News.

Posted by Kevin K. on 01/23/08 at 02:51 PM
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Thursday, December 06, 2007

This is a quick reminder guide for my fellow Big Applets:

• Williamsburg: Go to the Rwanda Reporting benefit tonight at Supreme Trading featuring a performance by Francis and the Lights, free hard-to-find Rwandan food and an hour’s worth of complimentary Bass beer. The donation is a measly $20.
  
• Manhattan: Go to see the wonderful and unique documentary Billy the Kid that opened last night at the IFC Center for a limited engagement.  I haven’t had time to finish my review, but you can read some of the raves at Metacritic.
  
• Manhattan: Go to see the long-awaited Holy Modal Rounders documentary Bound to Lose (and accompanying live music bonuses) at the Anthology during its one-week run (starts this Friday).
  

UPDATE: In comments the delightful and reliable Robin from oh. you. again. recommends buying tix for Au Revoir Parapluie (Farewell, Umbrella) at BAM in downtown Brooklyn. I’m doing that right now.

Posted by Kevin K. on 12/06/07 at 09:56 AM
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Sunday, November 25, 2007

I want to get out and enjoy what remains of this crisp fall day, so I’m going to keep this Selector short n’ (except for the FReeper link) sweet…

• THE LOST SOWETO COMP: The always terrific Matsuli Music is featuring a wonderful out-of-print find of South African music released in ‘83 called Soweto. It’s a stellar comp, lovingly converted to MP3 from vinyl, and the instrumental “Here We Come” that they spotlight in their post is one of the best (and most original) African instrumentals I’ve ever heard.  Highly recommended!
  
• ELISA FLYNN’S TWO-MAN BAND: My talented pal Elisa Flynn is unveiling her new live set-up with an accompanying drummer this Tuesday at Union Hall in Park Slope. Lurid Culture recently gave her a great endorsement (scroll down) in a blurb about this show.  As they say, “Catch her on the way up.” [UPDATE: Sadly, Elisa’s performance has been cancelled due to illness.]
  
• PUBIC HUMILIATION: Nobody is better at tearing down wingnuts with just a few words than TBogg. Nobody.
  
• AND SPEAKING OF WINGNUTS: Someone at Free Republic posts a story about celebrities in California having to flee their homes due to wildfires, a few FReepers launch into predictable thick-headed rants about Hollyweirdos and environuts ("I say let the whole state burn! Get rid of the nut jobs, I do not even like to admit California is one of the states."), and all hell breaks loose ("I am beginning to wonder if ‘conservative’ is such a good thing if it means heartless."). Hilarious.  But remember, liberals are the crazy and angry ones…
  

Posted by Kevin K. on 11/25/07 at 11:58 AM
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Tuesday, November 20, 2007

My dear pal Amy has put together a benefit to support the making of Rwanda Reporting, a documentary she’s producing. I encourage all of you Big Applets to attend this worthwhile event (I certainly will). It will feature free beer, Rwandan food and the music of Francis and the Lights, who are rumored to be amazing live.  I’ll let Amy take it away from here:

In January 2008, I will travel to Rwanda to spend a month following four journalism students - two Rwandan genocide survivors and two exchange students from Carleton University. The film will document their struggle to cover post-genocide Rwanda, thirteen years after the news media fueled the horrific violence and killings.

A portion of the funds generated from the completed film will be used to create a scholarship fund for journalism students at the National University in Butare. Your support at our fundraising event will help make this project and trip a success!

Details:

Posted by Kevin K. on 11/20/07 at 02:37 PM
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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Edgar Breau of Simply Saucer

WFMU is putting on a great free show this Saturday at Southpaw in Park Slope featuring Oneida, Simply Saucer, Alan Vega (of Suicide), and Old Time Relijun.  I’ve never had much luck at “getting” Oneida or Suicide (yes, I completely suck), but Simply Saucer and Old Time Relijun are both eagerly anticipated here at Rumproast HQ.  Canada’s long dormant Simply Saucer, described accurately by WFMU’s “Beware of the Blog” as “the single greatest 1970’s band to influence absolutely no one,” only released one (posthumous) album in the history of the band (Cyborgs Revisted—most recently reissued in 2003), but it’s a humdinger of psych-skronk garage-isms worthy of all of the indie insider praise layered upon it.  K Records vets Old Time Relijun just released their latest effort Catharsis In Crisis and, with the addition of Benjamin Hartman’s sax work to leader Arrington De Dionyso’s pulling-flesh-from-bone vocals, it explodes in so many directions you’ll find yourself ducking for cover the first few times you listen to it. OTR fan John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats put it best when reviewing Catharsis at his blog Last Plane to Jakarta: “I think Old Time Relijun are a very physical celebration of music and its possibilities, which is a terrible thing to say about anybody, since it makes them sound like professors, which they’re not. They’re hairy shirtless guys screaming about dark matter.”

Simply Saucer MP3s: ”Illegal Bodies” (aka Canada’s “Sister Ray") & ”Bullet Proof Nothing”

More Simply Saucer info: Sonic Unyun & Perfect Sound Forever

Old Time Relijun MP3s: Free full sample catalog downloads & Catharsis in Crisis download (only $6.99)

Posted by Kevin K. on 10/10/07 at 11:50 AM
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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

The first time I saw La Strada perform, they didn’t have a name yet and they were playing in the bowels of the NYC subway system.  They completely blew me away even though the most “electric” instrument they were playing was a little toy xylophone.  They have since moved on and have done the incredibly smart thing of getting a name and the even smarter thing of laying down three of their tracks. They are nothing short of amazing (imagine if Beirut knew how to be be joyous instead of melodramatic) and two rank among the best songs of ‘07 ("The Sun Song” & “Mama”—the song I saw them perform next to the tracks of the G train).  If you were smart (and I know that you are), you’d head over to MySpace right now and download those three “demo” tracks while La Strada is still graciously giving ‘em away. And if you were even smarter, you’d go check out Brooklyn’s “next big thing” at one of their three upcoming local shows while you can still get in the door.

Oct 4 2007 (10:00PM) Luna Lounge
Oct 10 2007 (8:30PM) Union Hall
Oct 13 2007 (8:00PM) Sound Fix Records (free show)

MORE: Weird.  As it turns out, rockin’ Robin posted about La Strada yesterday.  Since I’m no longer burdened with the horrible, horrible G train, I had no idea they were still playing that line.  Robin’s got a nice recording of them doing a new (?) song “Shapes In the Sky.”

Posted by Kevin K. on 10/03/07 at 07:10 AM
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Tuesday, October 02, 2007

The Bowerbirds

The Mountain Goats & Bowerbirds show at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC sold out a while ago, but you can still catch this great two-fer tonight (Tuesday, 10/2) at Greenpoint’s Studio B. The Mountain Goats always put on a fine show.  John Darnielle is one of the most inspiring and engaging indie rockers working the circuit these days and watching his bordering-on-cult-like fans quietly mouth along with every one of his lyrics is something to behold.  The Bowerbirds released the drop dead gorgeous Hymns for a Dark Horse this year (without a doubt one of the best releases of ‘07) and since they live out in the woods in a trailer without electricity, they’ll probably get all excited about seeing the sparkly lights and rock the fuck out. Or, at least, put on a really good show. And if you can’t make the show tonight, you can catch the Bowerbirds (sans the Mountain Goats but not serif) for FREE at Sound Fix records in Williamsburg tomorrow (Wednesday, 10/3).

Bowerbirds Interview: Stereogum
Mountain Goats & Bowerbirds Live Photos: Pitchfork
Listen: The Mountain Goats & Bowerbirds

Posted by Kevin K. on 10/02/07 at 08:16 AM
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